Perspectives in coastal human ecology (CHE) for marine conservation

Coastal human ecology (CHE) is a mixture of different theoretical and thematic approaches straddling between the humanities and social and natural sciences which studies human and coastal/marine interactions at the local-scale and through intense fieldwork. Topics of interest include human coastal adaptations past and present; the historical ecology of fisheries and future implications; local forms of marine governance and economic systems; local food security and livelihoods, and indigenous/local ecological knowledge systems among many research themes. In this paper, I explore different strands of CHE in the study of tribal, artisanal, and small-scale industrial fisheries from the mid-90s onward that can contribute to the foundational knowledge necessary for designing and implementing successful coastal fisheries management and conservation programs. Marine conservation has often failed due to a lack of understanding of the fine grained marine human-environmental interactions at the local scale. In this context, I also examine developing and future research directions in CHE, and discuss their potential contribution for filling the gap in existing approaches to actionable scholarship in marine conservation. The strength of many CHE approaches lies in their potential for bridging humanism and natural science, and thus CHE approaches are well equipped to address many of the challenges faced by marine conservation practitioners today

Investigating coral reef ethnobiology in the western Solomon Islands for enhancing livelihood resilience:

Coral reefs are of great socio-economic and cultural importance for many coastal communities across the tropics, yet little is known about people's local classifications and their social and ecological relationships with these habitats. In the case of island peoples, coral reefs are more than just resource exploitation areas; they are also géomorphologie features that allow or bar people from navigating, markers that define property rights of the seascape in relation to other coastal and terrestrial habitats, and cultural and historical features that embody tribal identity and ideology. Building upon over two decades of research, this paper uses published and unpublished data to describe people's ecological and socio-economic relationships with coral reefs in two extensive lagoon ecosystems in the Western Solomon Islands

Design of realistic hybrid marine resource management programs in Oceania

This review article synthesizes the authors' several decades of multidisciplinary natural and social science and applied marine resource management experience in the Asia-Pacific region to examine the strengthening of coastal and marine resource management and conservation using alliances between local communities and external institutions. The objective is to assist the design of resource management and conservation programs that enhance the capacity of coastal communities in Oceania to confront both diminishing marine resources and the effects of climate change by providing guidelines for protecting marine biodiversity and vulnerable ecosystem functions. This article describes a management framework that hybridizes local beliefs and institutions expressed in customary management (CM) with such modern management concepts as marine protected areas (MPAs) and ecosystem-based management (EBM). Hybrid management accommodates the social, political, economic, and cultural contexts of Oceanic communities and, compared with recent or conventional management approaches, can therefore better address fundamental local concerns such as coastal degradation, climate change, sea level rise, weak governance, corruption, limited resources and staff to manage and monitor marine resources, and increasing poverty. Research on the hybridization of management systems demonstrates opportunities to establish context-appropriate EBM and/or other managerial arrangements that include terrestrial and adjacent coastal-marine ecosystems. Formal and informal CM systems are widespread in Oceania and in some parts of Southeast Asia, and if appropriate strategies are employed rapid progress toward hybrid CM-EBM could be enabled

Indigenous People’s Detection of Rapid Ecological Change

When sudden catastrophic events occur, it becomes critical for coastal communities to detect and respond to environmental transformations because failure to do so may undermine overall ecosystem resilience and threaten people’s livelihoods. We therefore asked how capable of detecting rapid ecological change following massive environmental disruptions local, indigenous people are. We assessed the direction and periodicity of experimental learning of people in the Western Solomon Islands after a tsunami in 2007. We compared the results of marine science surveys with local ecological knowledge of the benthos across 3 affected villages and 3 periods before and after the tsunami. We sought to determine how people recognize biophysical changes in the environment before and after catastrophic events such as earthquakes and tsunamis and whether people have the ability to detect ecological changes over short time scales or need longer time scales to recognize changes. Indigenous people were able to detect changes in the benthos over time. Detection levels differed between marine science surveys and local ecological knowledge sources over time, but overall patterns of statistically significant detection of change were evident for various habitats. Our findings have implications for marine conservation, coastal management policies, and disaster-relief efforts because when people are able to detect ecological changes, this, in turn, affects how they exploit and manage their marine resources

Socio-Economic and Environmental Challenges of Small-Scale Fisheries: Prognosis for Sustainable Fisheries Management in Lake Kariba, Zambia

The Lake Kariba fishery is of regional importance; it accounts for 35% of the total Zambian fish production. However, emerging evidence in the recent decades suggests that the fishery is facing socio-economic and environmental challenges. Using Ostrom’s framework for analysing socio-ecological systems, we examined the social, economic, and environmental problems faced by the fishing communities in Lake Kariba. The framework links various social, economic, and ecological factors to devise a sustainable fisheries management plan. A combination of survey questionnaires, focus group discussions, observations, and key informant interviews were used to assess this sustainability challenge. The data collected were subjected to bivariate and descriptive analysis. The results obtained did not show a significant decline in fish production over the past 13 years (R2 Linear = 0.119, p = 0.248). However, the experts and the fishers have reported declining trends in valuable fish species such as Oreochromis mortimeri, compounded by the increased fishing efforts (X2 = 180.14, p value = ˂ 0.00001). The key threats identified include: overfishing, weak institutions, and the introduction of invasive fish species such as Oreochromis niloticus. This situation has raised fears of fish depletion among the stakeholders. Based on these results, we recommend stronger institutional collaboration among the stakeholders in the riparian states and education that illustrates the global value of fisheries for food security and biodiversity conservation in pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Global trends of local ecological knowledge and future implications

Local and indigenous knowledge is being transformed globally, particularly being eroded when pertaining to ecology. In many parts of the world, rural and indigenous communities are facing tremendous cultural, economic and environmental changes, which contribute to weaken their local knowledge base. In the face of profound and ongoing environmental changes, both cultural and biological diversity are likely to be severely impacted as well as local resilience capacities from this loss. In this global literature review, we analyse the drivers of various types of local and indigenous ecological knowledge transformation and assess the directionality of the reported change. Results of this analysis show a global impoverishment of local and indigenous knowledge with 77% of papers reporting the loss of knowledge driven by globalization, modernization, and market integration. The recording of this loss, however, is not symmetrical, with losses being recorded more strongly in medicinal and ethnobotanical knowledge. Persistence of knowledge (15% of the studies) occurred in studies where traditional practices were being maintained consiously and where hybrid knowledge was being produced as a resut of certain types of incentives created by economic development. This review provides some insights into local and indigenous ecological knowledge change, its causes and implications, and recommends venues for the development of replicable and comparative research. The larger implication of these results is that because of the interconnection between cultural and biological diversity, the loss of local and indigenous knowledge is likely to critically threaten effective conservation of biodiversity, particularly in community-based conservation local efforts

Transboundary Fisheries Management in Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA): Prospects and Dilemmas

Inland fisheries in the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA) offer food security to the riverine communities across the region. They also contribute towards the attainment of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 15, which aim to alleviate poverty and maintain biodiversity conservation. Despite this significant role, the fisheries have suffered severe declines in the previous decades due to multiple factors, such as overfishing and poor legislation. Furthermore, climate change is exerting pressure by altering the ecology and productivity of the river systems. The unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic have further constrained management efforts. Attempts to address these challenges have pointed towards transboundary fisheries management as a silver bullet in moving towards sustainable fisheries management. However, the implementation of this strategy in the region has encountered numerous roadblocks, thereby subjecting the river ecosystem to a wider environmental threat, with dire consequences on livelihoods. This paper reviews existing management and governance structures together with key informant interviews to elicit primary and secondary data essential for management at the regional level. The study identifies conflicting regulations, and inadequate policies and institutions across the region as major bottlenecks affecting the successful implementation of transboundary fisheries management. Finally, the paper offers some suggestions for the improvement of fisheries management in the region

Science in the service of society: Is marine and coastal science addressing South Africa's needs?

The modern world is confronted with many and diverse social and environmental challenges of high complexity. In South Africa, rapid and sustainable development is needed to address high levels of poverty and unemployment but this development has to take place in the context of an environment that is already severely impacted by human activities. Sound and relevant scientific input and advice, covering the full scope of each challenge, is essential for effective decisions and actions to address the needs. South Africa has the benefit of strong scientific capacity but the country’s National Development Plan reported that national research priorities were not always consistent with South Africa’s needs. We investigate the validity of that conclusion in the coastal and marine sciences by examining presentations made at the 2017 South African Marine Science Symposium on the theme of ‘Unlocking the ocean’s economic potential whilst maintaining social and ecological resilience’. Despite the theme, only 21% of the presentations were judged to be actionable and directly relevant to societal needs, as defined by the criteria used. Less than 7% were evaluated as being interdisciplinary within the natural sciences and approximately 10% were found to include both natural and human sciences. Poor representation by the human sciences was also noteworthy. This preliminary assessment highlights the need for an urgent review of the disciplinary representation and approaches in marine and coastal science in South Africa in the context of the priority practical needs of the country now and into the future

Human harvesting impacts on managed areas: ecological effects of socially-compatible shellfish reserves

We examined how human harvesting impacts on managed areas affect the abundance and size distribution of the edible mangrove shellfish Anadara granosa and Polymesoda spp. in the Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. We tested two hypotheses: (1) in areas permanently and temporally closed to human exploitation, abundance and size distribution of these shellfish species is significantly greater than in sites open to exploitation and (2) moderate human disturbance of shell beds, particularly of Polymesoda spp., increases their abundance. Firstly, we studied perceptions of environmental states and processes coupled to foraging and management interventions to assess sociocultural influences on harvesting practices and ascertain the types of management regime that people would consider in a context where poaching and interloping are common practices. Secondly, we compared shellfish abundance and shell size from areas that were permanently protected, temporally reserved for communal harvest, and permanently open for exploitation. Thirdly, drawing from women’s local knowledge, we measured the abundance of Polymesoda spp. in relation to mud compactness in quadrats across the three management regimes. Results showed that both species were significantly more abundant in permanent and temporally closed sites than in open sites. In the mud compactness study, however, while shell abundance was greater in moderately compacted quadrats, there was no statistical relationship between mud compactness and shell abundance within or across the three management regimes. Results suggest that even under the strong impacts of poaching, temporally closed areas have more clams than open areas and are as effective as areas that are permanently closed nominally. The results also suggest that human harvesting regimes can influence the effectiveness of local management decisions and thus are important when designing community-based conservation programs in the Solomon Islands and other Pacific Islands